Australia Makes Asian Language Learning a Priority 230
An anonymous reader writes "The Australian government came a step closer to formalising its plans to make Asian language study compulsory for schools this week. It has released a draft curriculum for public consultation which reveals plans to include Indonesian, Korean and french language in the curriculum. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard publicly stated in September 2012 that in response to the "staggering growth" in the region, the government would be instigating 25 key measures to strengthen and exploit links with Asia. The plan includes the requirement that one third of civil servants and company directors have a "deep knowledge," thousands of scholarships for Asian students, and the opportunity for every schoolchild to learn one of four "priority" languages- Chinese, Hindi, Japanese or Indonesian."
Indonesian, Korean and french (Score:5, Funny)
French is an asian language now?
(And why no capital for the poor old frogs?)
I was thinking the same thing (Score:2)
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If you read the article you find that one of the languages they're working on adding next is Italian.
Italian kind of makes sense. Several east African nations were originally Italian colonies(such as Somalia). If people from this area wanted to go to a Western nation, Australia would be a logical choice. A good pairing with French, which is/was spoken by a lot of Africa. It seems to me that Australia is expecting either an increased African immigration, or is looking to expand its presence in Africa.
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New Caledonia is just off the coast of Australia. And it is still maybe more widely spoken than English in parts of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
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and Why not the most common language of the region (i.e. Chinese) is included as an option. I am aware that there are many different dialects but Mandarin could possibly being used by a very large number of Asian (hundreds of millions or even near to a billion?).
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I really wanted to learn Mandarin Chinese back in school here in the U.S. But almost no school, secondary or college, offers it. Everyone just offers the same old Spanish/French/German--as opposed to Chinese, which would actually be REALLY useful in this modern world.
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Chinese, which would actually be REALLY useful in this modern world.
No, it wouldn't. It would take a massive effort to be proficient enough in Mandarin to be able to use it, and you would still not be accepted by native Chinese, because you're not one of them. You won't be able to use your rudimentary Mandarin to make any kind of business deals in China. If anything, you'd just be forced by your employer to travel to Beijing frequently and breathe in the toxic air. No thanks.
Re:Indonesian, Korean and french (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Indonesian, Korean and french (Score:5, Interesting)
you would still not be accepted by native Chinese, because you're not one of them.
I can speak and read Chinese, and it is indeed a very difficult language. But you are wrong about cultural acceptance. Chinese people are very welcoming, and will be delighted and helpful if you make an effort to speak even a little of their language. China is a multicultural and multilingual country, and even some Chinese people speak Mandarin poorly, so they have flexible expectations about fluency. This is in contrast to Japan, which is like France, where they expect you to speak their language perfectly or not at all, and even then, will never accept you as one of their own.
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They will think you're from Jersey Shores.
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Our former, deposed, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd bignoted himself by declaring himself fluent in Mandarin. Needless to say, as PM he gave a few scripted speeches in the language, appearing prominently on the TV.
But when push came to shove, Beijing told him to get stuffed in terms of foreign policy, so a fat load of good his supposed fluency did him.
You'll hence probably find the average Australian is quite sceptical of the motives for this legislation. Learning languages is a good thing in itself but still...
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If you look at the bottom of the post (I know, I know) you'll find that Chinese, Hindi, Japanese and Indonesian are already the highest priority, and the other languages are considered in addition to them.
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Not surprising -- if you look on a globe you'll see that's about as far from France as you can get.
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Oh, I know. I was just trying to take the cheap road to funny.
Learning is great (Score:4, Interesting)
Learning is surely great in all forms. But I am confused why Hindi is a 'priority language'. Every corporate senior person I've met from India - Director type level - not only speaks several Indian languages, but also has flawless English in terms of grammar and vocabulary mixed with a somewhat local accent depending on where they're from in India, unless, as an in-joke among Indian colleagues goes, they're walked past the US Embassy and are suddenly embroiled with a thick US accent.
Chinese, for dealing with anyone outside the BPO / ITO / major trade companies: government, state owned and specialists yes.
Japanese, things in Japan tend to happen in Japanese despite the speaker's English ability, whatever the industry, so yes.
Indonesian, honestly have no experience.
But Hindi. Seems odd to be a priority.
Re:Learning is great (Score:5, Insightful)
Every corporate senior person I've met from India - Director type level - not only speaks several Indian languages, but also has flawless English in terms of grammar and vocabulary
If you were dealing with workers on a factory floor, even skilled ones, your experience would be different
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In general: It will be a sad day for international communication when Chinese languages becomes the
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Indians also shouldn't have a hard time to grasp English since their languages are still part of the Indo-European languages and share similarities.
Generally true of Northern Indian languages, though the Dravidian languages spoken in the South are more different to Hindi than Hindi is to English. Also some areas in the Himalayas speak languages closer to the languages of Tibet and Mayamar, which are completely different again.
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Yes, they have like 22 native languages in India in total, not counting dialects, if I remember correctly. Having a common and easy to learn language does make sense. From a technical viewpoint: In information technology we don't use the most complicated 'languages' to transmit messages, where errors are more likely to happen. For human communication Esperanto never gained enough popularity, so English is currently the best choice.
I agree that English is currently the best choice because of popularity, but it certainly is not the simplest. Discounting invented languages like esperanto and creols like Tok Pisin, Afrikaans is probably the simplest language
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Discounting invented languages like esperanto and creols like Tok Pisin, Afrikaans is probably the simplest language
Huh, haven't you forgotten Riau Indonesian?
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They have hundreds of languages in India. 22 is the number of them that are given a special status as historically and culturally important languages in the India constitution. But the others are as much dialects as English is a dialect of German.
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Pretty much everybody has a hard time grasping English, even other speakers of Indo-European languages.
All languages pick up loanwords from other languages, but English has a couple of... special... habits as far as this is concerned. Loanwords are perhaps the toughest: all languages pick up words from other languages when they come into contact, but most languages adapt the spelling and surrounding grammar into their own systems. English doesn't normally do that: it preserves the original spelling and ofte
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Re:Learning is great (Score:5, Informative)
Learning is surely great in all forms.
. . . plus by learning the language . . . you also learn the culture. And be able to understand it better. That makes real business sense.
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Very much agree here.
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You also learn what the client or supplier is discussing amongst themselves when they think you can't understand them. Often very useful in a business context.
Re:Learning is great (Score:5, Informative)
Abram de Swaan identified a list of twelve "supercentral languages" that he believed serve as extremely common bridges among speakers of different languages in their native dialects. If one considers the region that people in English-speaking countries typically think of as "Asia," four of the supercentral languages are native to that region: Chinese (specifically Mandarin), Hindi, Malay (of which Indonesian is a dialect), and Japanese. This list was probably a strong factor when they were deciding which languages to use.
Geographically speaking, there are actually two other languages on the list that are native to the Asian continent: Arabic and Russian. I doubt, however, that the people drawing up these lists considered the regions these languages are from to be "real Asia." Make of that what you will.
(Incidentally, the other six languages are English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swahili).
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Russian was taught at my school during the 80s. It dropped fairly quickly from the Australian curriculum after Gorby was deposed by Boris and the Berlin wall was torn down.
Arabic is taught downunder but generally to Muslim kids in Islamic schools.
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Both countries have a rapid economic growth and especially Malaysia has a reasonable average level of income.
Indonesia is in size the worlds fourth largest country, all reasons to keep good neighbourly contacts with them and if the economy isn't interesting then it is at least because ha
A good idea (Score:2)
Meanwhile in Quebec... (Score:2)
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Ah I always love getting a bit of nourriture rapide when I'm in Quebec...
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I'm not quite sure how to translate "fuck you" in french, and I was born and lived all my life in Québec.
I'm asking, just in case I ever have to confront one of those "language cop".
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I get the same feeling while I watch "English" TV programmes from the UK. It's so different from the english used in Canada and the USA that I can only understand half of it, unless I have subtitles.
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It's a difficult accent, to be sure. To an untrained ear it sounds little like the language I waded through as a teenager.
During my travels through western europe, I found french canadians to be a darn friendly bunch - compared to other north americans. :) They were fairly accommodating in switching to English in a glorious Canadian accent...
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English destruction? Please. Get your facts corrrect
LOL pastagate
English... (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly, throughout Asia English is taught in schools. In Taiwan it's become a mandatory part of the curriculum, and that may also be the case elsewhere. When it's not, many parents go out of their ways to get their kids to learn the language.
In the US, however, a second language seems to be selected based on whatever the prevailing language spoken by the dominant ethnic group in the area. And that's assuming they offer a second language at all. More often than not the language ends up being Spanish, which all too frequently becomes more of a service to ESL students than value to anyone else.
I find that to be a persistent problem with the American educational system, there's no goal and thinking is often too insular. The difference between systems is that overseas they're trying to make people competitive internationally but still expecting their citizens speak the official language. Meanwhile, Americans, instead of stressing the importance of English for success keep making accommodations for non-speakers.
I suppose someday the US might become a Spanish speaking nation, and that's totally fine. But we're far from that reality and currently Asian nations are economically dominant and on the rise. Of course, it's not feasible to keep switching languages every time some new nation rises in influence, which is why we've got English as the standard and why everyone continues to learn that.
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Become? It has been for over a century and a half. And yet, despite it being "fine", you were just whining about it.
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Well, I disagree that it's fine, as I would prefer to keep English alive and well. At worst, we'll be a bilingual country in half a century. It seems you truly have no problem with it, as you use the derogatory "whine" to describe the apparent issue parent has with the notion.
Re:English... (Score:4, Insightful)
First - I appreciate the value of knowing a second language. I don't mean this as a "speak English or die" rant...
But learning a second language while living in the US counts as a complete and utter waste of time. If you don't use a language, you lose it, simple as that - Personally, I took seven years of French in school, starting from a young age (2nd grade), and I can just barely read it, painfully slow. Despite having wasted somewhere on the order of thousands of hours of instructional time cramming that language into my head, I have very nearly no ability whatsoever to carry on a conversation with someone who only speaks French.
Now, if you live in an area (even in the US) that has a large Spanish-speaking population - Perhaps you can use it enough that it will "stick". If you live in Europe, where they have multiple languages spoken regularly, a second or even third language makes functional sense. If you live somewhere that doesn't speak English (and again, I don't mean this as a pro-English screed), it makes sense to learn English as a second language, as the lingua Franca of international business (and yes, I appreciate the irony of that phrase).
Australia will have the exact same problem we have in the US. They can mandate kids pass a proficiency test, but three years after highschool, it will have made no difference in the number of languages known.
Re:English... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, it is just like biology and physics and math beyond first year algebra.
The point is it does make a difference, for they are better for having learned it, because basic concepts aren't forgotten and they will be that much less ignorant (and provincial), and some of the kids will make use of what they learn, thus advancing their country's interests in international trade.
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I suppose someday the US might become a Spanish speaking nation, and that's totally fine. But we're far from that reality and currently Asian nations are economically dominant and on the rise. Of course, it's not feasible to keep switching languages every time some new nation rises in influence, which is why we've got English as the standard and why everyone continues to learn that.
One of the really great things going for Spanish is that to native speakers of a Western European language like English, Spanish is very easy to learn. Spelling is phonetic. Grammar is essentially simple with the possible exception of reflexive verbs, but those are easy enough to learn. That's in no way a criticism of Spanish to call it "easy to learn". In fact, I'd argue that it's a great strength. One of the reasons that English became a world language is that while there are complicated aspects (str
Re:English... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Japanese language does have tone accents which do distinguish meanings. Although context will sort things out in all but extreme cases, improper tone is one of the primary markers of a non-native speaker. Perhaps Japanese grammar is complicated compared with Chinese or Korean (I wouldn't know) it is certainly far more regular (ie easier) than European languages (like English.) Now the writing system on the other hand...
All in all, it probably takes the same amount of effort to learn either eg English or Japanese as a second-language.
No. You need to study/speak a language like Mandarin to really appreciate that tones are fundamentally different that merely pronouncing vowels differently or having an accent or conveying mood (occasionally). English speakers might pronounce 'tomato' differently between the US and UK, might raise their voices at the end when angry or yelling, Japanese might "swallow" a trailing -u, everyone might have a regional accent that pronounces words "funny" compared to elsewhere, but none of that is tonal in the sense that Mandarin is a tonal language.
In Mandarin, tones are part of the correct pronunciation of a word. Different tone = different word. As in "shi" with a rising tone can mean "10" and "shi" with a falling tone can mean "vision" and "shi" with a neutral tone can mean "poem". Japanese and English are not like this.
Yes, somebody with a US southern drawl may pronounce ten, the number, close to tan, the color, but that's a regional access a not a tone. Somebody emphasizing a syllable or raising the voice (mad or asking a question) is also not a tone - it is not part of the correct pronunciation of the word.
Japanese grammar is more complicated that English or Mandarin in a few ways (I don't know about Korean, I never studied that language), but at the same time it is highly regular. One example is verb/adjective conjugation. In English, if a car is red or was red, the adjective "red" stays the same, present or past tense. Similarly, in Mandarin, the chejì would be hóng, same word form. In Japanese, the kuruma would be akai or akakatta (or akakunai or akakunakatta to complete the conjugations). On the other hand, there are basically 2 kinds of adjectives in Japanese (-i and -na) and they follow fairly regular patterns with only a handful of exceptions.
English is complicated because so many words have multiple meanings, wildly different (spring as coiled metal, a season of the year, jumping) so almost everything requires context to decode, it is highly idiomatic, has a large number of exceptions to almost any grammar rule from conjugations to pluralizing and so on, pronunciation is a crap shoot with general rules about sounds and again as many exceptions as their are rules. One thing about Japanese and Mandarin is the pronunciation is consistent (and you start by studying pinyin or hiragana/katakana) even if it is difficult.
Opposite experince (Score:2)
In the US, however, a second language seems to be selected based on whatever the prevailing language spoken by the dominant ethnic group in the area. And that's assuming they offer a second language at all. More often than not the language ends up being Spanish, which all too frequently becomes more of a service to ESL students than value to anyone else.
I've noticed the exact opposite during my education. I live in Georgia, and we have a lot of Spanish speakers in my general area. Of course my middle school offered only French and Spanish (I chose French). My high school offered French, Spanish, Latin, and German (I did one year of French and 3 of Latin). I went to college in rural, middle of nowhere North Carolina, and my university offered French, Spanish, Biblical Greek (it was a baptist university) German (which I took for 2 years) and, my senior y
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Even so, your average Brazilian child will be taught Spanish as a foreign language in order to participate in trade with neighbouring countries (MERCOSUL).
Spanish... (Score:2)
I suppose someday the US might become a Spanish speaking nation, and that's totally fine. But we're far from that reality and currently Asian nations are economically dominant and on the rise. Of course, it's not feasible to keep switching languages every time some new nation rises in influence, which is why we've got English as the standard and why everyone continues to learn that.
Much of the U.S. is already bilingual. But learning Spanish isn't just a good idea for use at home, it's useful rather far afield -- more people in the Western Hemisphere speak Spanish than English. Asian languages might be trendier, but if you can't find good international business opportunities somewhere between the Rio Grande and Drake Passage, then the problem isn't with the language you studied.
not that new (Score:2)
I live here and have a bunch of friends who were either taught indonesian or Japanese at least for a couple of classes in school.
It makes sense, as most of our trade is within the Asian region.
I know this may come as a shock to those in the US, but learning a language other than English is pretty common in other English speaking countries, especially in the Eurozone.
Most of the people working in hospitality I dealt with during a 6 week tour of Europe (inc, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Czech R
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Most of the people working in hospitality I dealt with during a 6 week tour of Europe (inc, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Hungary, etc.) spoke at least 2-3 languages. One of our swiss tour guides spoke at least 5.
That'd probably be true in the US if every state spoke a different language. One of the things that always strikes me when I go to Europe is how physically small the countries are. I'm not saying that's good, bad or indifferent, but it is a very different experience from being in the US. Hop in the car or on a train, travel a few hours (or less) and you're in a different country speaking a different language. It provides a much greater incentive to learn, and makes it much easier to retain a knowledge of ot
Makes me want to move to Australia (Score:3)
As a parent who desperately wants his children to become fluent in at least two languages I am stuck with horrible choices because I live in America. I have cobbled together language training for my two older sons while they were young enough to learn but it was extremely difficult. Now, to get an immersion Chinese program for him, I am using school of choice to send my youngest to an inner city school where they are so poor that they just fired all of the elementary school art, music, and PE teachers to close a budget gap. When will we make education a priority in this country?
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Although there must be a physical limit to how many memories we can store, it is extremely large. We don’t have to worry about running out of space in our lifetime.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-the-memory-capacity [scientificamerican.com]
neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes). For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage.
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neuroscience researchers are increasingly coming to a consensus that bilingualism has many positive consequences for the brain. Several such researchers traveled to this month's annual meeting of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., to present their findings. Among them: Bilingual children are more effective at multi-tasking. Adults who speak more than one language do a better job prioritizing information in potentially confusing situations. Being bilingual helps ward off early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in the elderly.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/26/health/la-he-bilingual-brain-20110227
I have seen research showing that kids in immersion bilingual programs, though they initially lag, have a larger English vocabulary than their peers by 6th grade. There have also been documented advantages in math.
Anecdotally, my 7 year old reads Rick Riordan
Some Asian languages are more equal than others (Score:2)
So, I'm semi-fluent in Spanish and I wrote to my federal politician about incentives for learning Portuguese - no response.
Who will teach the people of Timor Leste their own official language? Certainly not interested volunteers from Australia.
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If they can't do it themselves, then how important can it possibly be? Besides, if you really want to go teach them something, why not teach them English instead?
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It's important to the identity of the people of Timor Leste. For nearly 300 years they were under the Portuguese flag until the estado novo collapsed and the Indonesians invaded soon afterwards. Rightly or wrongly, the government has reasserted its Lusophonic identity, making Portuguese again an official language alongside Tetum.
As for not being able to "do it themselves", since independence in 2002 they've relied economically on benefactors such as its neighbour Australia and the UN to provide aid. With Po
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The biggest markets are all English speaking or use English as a trade language though. The seller needs to learn the language of the buyer, not the other way round. Who knows, that may change in the future if China opens its markets to foreign companies, but for the foreseeable future English will remain the language of business.
It is a great idea for Australia to integrate more with the surrounding nations however, to better position itself for the future. It's essentially an English/Irish colony state bu
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You might want to look at what Australia exports and where to. They are not just a nation of consumers, you know.
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Mmmm, vegemite....so tasty, so good, so impossible for me to find when I actually have a spare dollar.
Re:Exactly Backwards (Score:5, Informative)
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Australia's balance of trade with China is extremely positive at the moment [dfat.gov.au]. China buys almost twice as much Australian stuff as Australia buys Chinese stuff, as opposed to trade with the US which is 3-1 in the red. So, hao hao xuexi ba.
The stuff that China buys from Australia are mostly natural resources.
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Do you have any idea just how many people are in the Asian region, and how well positioned they are to completely turn the tables on the world economy in the wake of this epic clusterfuck we're currently in?
Knowing the language of those you deal with is a massive advantage for not getting fucked whichever side of the transaction you are on.
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The biggest markets are all English speaking or use English as a trade language though.
The final contract may be written in English, but all the haggling is done in Chinese.
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English is used worldwide when conducting business between two people with otherwise dissimilar language, but Chinese is still mostly limited to conducting business with China. It just seems a lot bigger than it is because China has become an economic powerhouse, but if you have an Arab meeting with a German, and neither speaks the other's native language, then they're still much more likely to use English than Chinese. The British empire spread English to almost every continent and the American-driven worl
Re:Exactly Backwards (Score:5, Interesting)
English is used worldwide when conducting business between two people with otherwise dissimilar language, but Chinese is still mostly limited to conducting business with China.
This. Before, people were mostly concerned with learning the language of the bordering countries because that's what was most useful. Today people have the Internet and want/need a global language of communication. While this graphic is also in many ways biased, English in the World [blogspot.com] shows most of the world has English as their first foreign language. That trend is only going to grow stronger because there are huge network effects at play here. While the US may be seeing a big influx of Spanish, here in Europe the trend is opposite - few people learn Spanish and the Spaniards learn more and more English. And I don't think it has any traction in Africa, Asia or Oceania.
Re:Exactly Backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever been in a business meeting with people who speak another language? Have you seen them confer amongst themselves, in your presence in said language? I haven't, but my ex has - and they didn't know that one of the english speakers actually knew French. The conversation that they thought was private was quite revealing, to say the least.
Knowledge is power. That very much includes knowing how to communicate.
Remaining wilfully ignorant of the language spoken by those you trade or otherwise conduct business with is pretty fucking foolish, irrespective of whatever "standard" language there may be.
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In today's world economy, you could be doing business with a French speaker today, a Spanish speaker tomorrow, a Hindii speaker next week and a Russian speaker the week after. If nothing else, it's pretty impractical to learn every language in the world when English is already fairly standard. Sure, it helps if you're moving into a new market but then you'll probably at least have locals on your team to help smooth things along.
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Have you actually tried that? Even if there are no language problems, cultural differences are going to be a wellspring of headaches for a long time to come. The world isn't nearly as small as some people believe.
Can't speak for the GP, but yes - I have tried it, and it's fairly common to do in international companies within Europe.
I work for the European HQ (based in Germany) of a large multinational with a Japanese parent company. On a daily basis, I deal with at least 3 or 4 different EU cultures plus Japanese culture. At least once every couple of weeks, I deal with India. Generally a few times a month, there'll be something I need to deal with in North Africa, Middle East, or Russia.
Yep, there's a lot of cul
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Have you ever been in a business meeting with people who speak another language? Have you seen them confer amongst themselves, in your presence in said language? I haven't, but my ex has - and they didn't know that one of the english speakers actually knew French. The conversation that they thought was private was quite revealing, to say the least.
Only to make sure that what was said in English was fully understood by everyone in the room or asking a stronger English speaker to express something they found difficult, never heard anything they seemed to assume was private. Seems like a very foolish move as I can speak three languages, understand five and probably pick up stray words from a dozen. Would this possibly be Canadian French and the English speakers in presence American? Because people tend to assume Americans only speak English (or possibly
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For work I travel a lot and I can assure you in business some other language than English can often be the difference between success and failure.
And as someone else here already stated overhearing the off-line chatter between business partners can be quite revealing, even when your command of the language is not so very good.
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Language Fads (Score:2)
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I'm a cornfed laowai
So sorry, but, uh, WTF?
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The modern world conducts more and more business in Chinese. It is a good idea to have knowledge of Chinese.
Ummm... which of the Mandarin or Cantonese would you suggest?
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China may be the biggest Asian country, but what about the others. Maybe they should be learning one of the Official languages of India (the second largest asian country) that is also widely spoken in other asian countries.
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That would be English, then? Or are you including official languages of the various states of India (rather than the nation as a whole), in which case Tamil, Bengali, Urdu and Punjabi would also qualify?
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Possibly, but there are a hell of a lot of technical people around the world that aren't ever going to learn Chinese, so it can't muscle its way in as an international lingua franca. Not in the next 100 years anyway.
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The same point as why we had French in my high school... there isn't one. Sure, we *might* go to France or Quebec someday, but odds are A) we won't and B) even if we do, we can get by fine without being fluent (assuming a vacation, not a residency). Spanish makes a modicum more sense (in NY... in the southern US, Spanish makes a lot of sense). German works a little because there's a lot of communities with heavy German ties in NY. You can argue that it's to expose kids to other cultures, but then why spend
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The same point as why we had French in my high school... there isn't one.
I can't figure out whether you're definitely not Canadian, or definitely an (Anglophone) Canadian.
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We read and write the Queen's tongue to a high level of mutual intelligibility.
I cringe more that the world is learning "American" as a second language and having to re-educate them that there's a 'u' in colour, an 'i' in aluminium and theatre, kilometre etc.
Re:Won't do much good (Score:5, Insightful)
Well it is a step in the right direction. If you look at a globe Australia south of Far East Asia.
Sure they can do business with the Yanks and the Brits, but they are missing their closest neighbors.
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Well it is a step in the right direction.
I agree, but I wish they'd learn proper English first.
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Well it is a step in the right direction. If you look at a globe Australia south of Far East Asia. Sure they can do business with the Yanks and the Brits, but they are missing their closest neighbors.
No it's ok - we talk English in New Zealand too.
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Shifting the focus to more useful languages (IE those spoken in China) can only be a good thing for our future as a nation.
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And by useful, that means whichever language group has girls you think are the hottest, learn that one.
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While you're being pedantic, you could say the same about Indonesian. Clearly they mean the North Sumatra dialect of Malay that is the official language of Indonesia, rather than one of the 700 or so other languages that are spoken in Indonesia.
You should try learning English (Score:2)